in 2010 a major classified construction project broke ground on the north lawn of the white house
while officials claimed the work was to upgrade utilities for the east and west wings
the project's top secret price tag led many to speculate it was a much more serious undertaking
but could the project really have been intended to serve a more secret purpose
the new construction at the white house grounds is simply more facilities
in the event of an attack to guard the president and to allow
the white house to function with many aides even though an attack may be occurring
a lot of the information regarding the president's safety and security and that
of the white house by their nature have to remain secret you can't give your adversaries a hand in
understanding how to defeat your systems and your procedures it is secret and it'll remain so
over the past 200 years the function of the white house has grown beyond just
being the president's personal residence it has become the nation's center of executive power
a strategic location that has required the home to become more like a fortress
december 7th 1941 a date which will live in infamy
pearl harbor was such a shock
engineers then they began to look after the president's safety many people wanted him to move
and go somewhere else to a secret place but he wouldn't do it and he
said the president belongs here of course president roosevelt was in a wheelchair
and so that worried them even more about moving him around so there were several
things came up one was that they closed off all the skylights covered them all with paint
but he did let them put wet sand in a bucket and a gas mask in every bedroom but what never changed
was the color of the structure even in times of war they asked president
roosevelt if they could paint the house camouflage camo and he said no you cannot
but perhaps one of the biggest of the white house's many secrets
is the fact that the current building is actually less than 70 years old
having been extensively remodeled in the late 1940s by president harry truman truman's daughter
the margaret's piano leg fell through two boards and they said out and so he moved to blair house
and a survey was done of the house and the corps got to truman one of the men told me who was an
engineer who surveyed the house at that time that you could walk between the plaster ceiling and the
wooden structure of the east room i mean you couldn't stand up but it was four feet it dropped
after securing the funds from congress truman authorized the 147 year old residence
to be gutted from the inside and meticulously rebuilt from the original blueprints but was
the construction done purely for the safety of the first family or might there have been another more
secret reason was the renovation an opportunity to clear the house of any cold war spying devices
or was it an occasion to harden the executive offices against any potential atomic threats
between 1948 and 1952 engineers replaced all the wood frame substructure
with concrete and state-of-the-art steel beams they tore off the attic and roof and created a
new roof that was a bigger pitch but not so much that it would be a hat from the street
and they added up some bedrooms and some storage rooms and things all in steel
they built a steel structure just inside the original walls and new foundations were given
to the original wall so they don't support anything but themselves and each room is a
steel cage and the whole house was rebuilt in steel and then the plaster put on steel lath
and the idea was that it would be the house for the ages today the exterior sandstone walls are
all that remain of the original white house but could truman's extensive renovation project have
really been a cover for changes to the building that were meant to be hidden from the public
changes similar to those undertaken in
2010 research on the effects of a hiroshima-sized explosion set off at a midpoint along pennsylvania
avenue suggests that the white house with its reinforced concrete low-lying silhouette and
large surrounding buildings would sustain less damage than the capitol building
equally critical to ensure the president's protection are the invisible defenses built
into the white house itself while the exact specifications remain classified
it is believed the entire building has been modified to be practically bulletproof
not long ago this is what you needed to protect against armor piercing
as you can see it's about four inches thick it's a combination of glass and polycarbonates and
though it's very clear it's still very heavy very thick it's an intense piece of product since then
the glass has gotten much thinner and actually there are even space age polymers available
this thin and light it also has amazing stopping power and a very lightweight material once you've
protected your glass you want to start considering your walls ceilings and floors
and if you can imagine this is the kind of thing that is typically done in buildings to achieve
a level seven level seven is armor piercing so if we were to be doing
a high level government facility say something like the white house it would be
reasonable to assume that you'd have something like this throughout the walls ceilings and floors
of the rooms that you really wanted to protect against projectiles coming at it
is it possible that the president is hardening the white house even further
perhaps expecting a direct attack while the white house is fortified against acts of war
just how vulnerable is the president and his family to an attempted assassination
you